New chairman of Bank of Baku supervision board appointed

The new chairman of the Bank of Baku OJSC Supervision Board has been appointed by a decision at the general meeting of the bank's shareholders.

Elmir Habibullayev - Director General of the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) has become the chairman of the bank's supervision board.

He will replace Elchin Isayev in this position.

The Bank of Baku was established in 2005 by a merger of two local private banks, Bank of Baku OJSC and IlkBank CB.

Currently 40 percent of the bank's shares are owned by the Turkish group of companies NAB, 10 percent by Elchin Isayev (former chairman of the bank's supervisory board), over 29 percent are with Azpetrol and 21 percent are owned by an individual and the 'AzInvest' company.

In general, the bank has operated since Feb. 14, 1994 under the name of Tuqay commercial bank which on Feb. 10, 1997, was renamed Bank of Baku commercial bank.

The bank's legal form also changed following its name. Starting from August 27, 1997, the Bank of Baku was re-registered as a joint stock commercial bank and on October 22, 2004, the bank received the legal status of an open joint stock company.

On January 26, 2005 the National Bank of Azerbaijan, now the Central Bank of Azerbaijan, officially confirmed the merger of the two banks. On February 18 in the same year, the Bank of Baku OJSC was formed as a result of the merger and granted a licence to conduct banking operations.